Feel
by simba317
Summary: Oneshot. Sookie tries to understand the person, the vampire, the mystery that is Eric Northman on the worst day of his entire existence.


**Disclaimer:** If I owned True Blood, there would be a lot more Pam and Eric too. Lol.

**Author's Notes: **I started this a little while after Episode 10 aired…I finished the first scene and then the second…didn't finish the rest of it until now when I got the idea for the cheque and the meaning of it. It was just something brief in my head that wanted to get out…and occasionally I am short and succinct. Mima, it's not that descriptiony. LOL. I wasn't really sure I wanted to publish this…but then, I got to the end of writing it and it felt like it wrapped up and completed itself once I came back to it. And then I was too wrapped up in school (I'm back to uni!) to edit it and I had to do my recaps and Every Sunset…but I felt like I was gyping my readers…Here's something ready for publishing!

Like I said on my recaps on Blood Bonds, I think Sookie did go to see Eric after Godric died. I don't think she dreamed everything. This is my idea of what happened and yes, it is inspired by Skate and Confidence Man.

This is not the oneshot I've been planning to write for some time…that's the one about Jessica. I'm going to wait until the finale finally airs to write it because I think it will lend itself well to that. I got the idea for the Jessica oneshot after Episode 2 aired while in Atlantic Canada on vacation. I'm writing Every Sunset as we speak! (Over 4000 words in…so let me triple that and I've got a chapter?) And then, I'll get to the continuation of A Lesson in the Temporal. I still can't believe I got second place in the contest! Wow.

* * *

**FEEL**

"Eric…I'm so sorry."

I don't think I'd ever seen so much pain and devastation on another person. The tear tracks of dried blood ran down his cheeks and onto his chest. He had peeled off his shirt at some point, I guess he couldn't be bothered to ruin a shirt when the tears couldn't stop, wouldn't stop. The man was too broken to function, to wipe the tears off. His eyes were glassy and red, fresh blood filled the rims of his eyes and smeared on the edges.

I swallowed. He was a mess.

He'd lost everything. I could understand that. I could see that he did indeed feel and love. I saw that he hurt.

I couldn't stop the hand from reaching out to him, to his face like some magnetic force, but his voice stopped me cold.

"Get out," he ground out evenly. I didn't move.

"GET OUT," he bellowed, his face contorted with anger, rage and fury. I started at the tone and volume of his voice, shaking. He'd gone from vulnerable to deadly before I could blink.

Giving him one last look, I darted out of his room, shutting the door behind me.

I leaned on the door frame, rubbing my eyes, finding them tearing up. I didn't know why I was doing this. Why did I do it?

I laughed, I was being stupid. This was Eric. What did I expect?

He's an asshole. Nothing more.

Just…he was just through that door going through the worst day of his life and I knew what that was like, knew what it was like to lose your everything, your constant, your world.

I took a shuddering breath not understanding what I felt, why I felt it.

* * *

Is a dream a wish the heart makes?

"You're gonna pretend like it didn't happen?"

He raised an eyebrow, "I'm making a proposition."

I stared at him witheringly.

"I'll live," he said resolutely, his jaw set, "I'll live."

And I saw a thousand year's worth of determination and strength cross his eyes and shut me out.

I found myself startled by the will within me to venture past his walls.

"I know what it's like," I whispered, "My grandmother…"

But he cut me off, his eyes flashing furiously, seething, "You know nothing of what it's like, you know not the depth of what I have lost and what I have been made to do. How could you?"

I squared my jaw and stiffened my shoulders defiantly as the implications of his words sank in.

_You are not vampire. You are merely human. _

"I don't want your pity."

"You don't have it."

What did he have of me though?

I stepped around him and walked past his desk towards the door to his office wondering why I was here.

I clutched my cheque tighter. Well, it wasn't for that.

I turned my head over my shoulder and saw him watching me as he sat on his desk, a stormy and sour expression on his face, glaring at my back with venom.

"You feel, I know you do," I whispered and I didn't know why, "You love. You even know what it's like. Don't tell me you don't understand."

I stared deep into his eyes, those glacial blue eyes which bore back at me with equal challenge. "So you can cut the act and stop pretending. I know."

He quirked a rebellious eyebrow, "You think you do."

I scoffed at his condescension, turning on my heel, drifting down the hall, out the employee exit and to my car. I don't know why I bothered with him. Yet he got under my skin and I couldn't help but react. I couldn't quite ignore him which was what I really wanted to do.

It had to be the stupid dreams. Eric was not the man he was in my dreams. No where close. They were a strange and fucked up fantasy world. The Eric I knew would never do anything remotely close to those he did in those dreams. There was no use pretending like he would. He wasn't sweet. He wasn't sensitive. He wasn't kind. It did not reflect the truth of reality. To want the fantasy was to get nothing but disappointment.

To my disappointment, the sinking in my heart felt a lot like just that, disappointment. Well, damn him.

Grief is a funny thing.

He was either dealing with it or not dealing at all.

But he obviously didn't need my help and I was not offering it. I didn't want to.

* * *

Under the eerie glow of the parking lot, I boarded my car and prepared to start the engine, stowing the cheque on the dash. Glancing around, I shuddered and locked the doors. It wasn't one of my better ideas to come to Fangtasia alone…but I had and I didn't even tell Bill when I got the call to come in for my cheque.

I wondered why the hell I had come. I wondered why I didn't just ask for Eric to send it over the mail. I wondered why the hell he didn't do just that.

All things I had to ponder over. Later.

And now that damn piece of standard white envelope was mocking me from the dash, its whiteness a stark contrast to the dark all around me.

Curiosity got the better of me. I picked up the damned thing and opened up the blank white envelope. Slipping out the cheque, I could feel my eyes bulge as I caught Eric's elegant script on the cheque.

There was far more money on that cheque than for what we had agreed upon.

It was simply too much, an amount I would not feel comfortable in taking, even from a guy like Eric. The gesture was so strange and beyond what I envisioned a person like him would do. The question thrummed around me in the car. Why did he do it?

The more I found out about Eric, the more he confused me. There wasn't anything simple about the man. He was incredibly unpredictable. Ruthless, cunning, violent, manipulative and cruel, he wore it on his vile sleeve with no preamble. He didn't hide it, it was who he was and you knew it. Yet he would risk it all for someone he cared about, someone he loved. He was loyal and he felt as much, maybe even more than I did. There was a strange dichotomy about him, but it didn't ring false. He was a multiple sided dice. Every side made up the whole.

There was a mystery to him, something to figure out, only I didn't know what it was.

I thought to stumble back in and get him to adjust my payment, but then the hidden meaning behind the gesture came to me. Maybe I was solving the puzzle, unwrapping the enigma.

I felt a tear escape my eye, "You're welcome."

Understanding waved through my body and I felt lighter as a small smile crossed my lips, understanding for all the words that he could not bear to say, for all the pain buried within, for all the emotions that could not surface. Because it all hurt too much.

I wished I could tell him that Godric loved him to the very end. It was what I would have wanted to know when Gran passed. I hoped he could understand those wishes from me in return, the actions without the words and the meaning behind them.

It was little secret between the two of us.

"I'm right about you."

* * *

Hope you enjoyed it!

As always, reviews and feedback is greatly appreciated.

~simba_317


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